SB886, sponsored by Charlie Justice: This one would increase regulation of lead in children’s toys. This one is simple. Lead is poisonous. More than 20 million toys were recalled in the last year or so. We need to prevent our children from getting lead poisonoing. This bill would help that.
SB1116, sponsored by Gwen Margolis: This one would increase the penalties for mortgage fraud schemes. Another good idea that really could prove to be incredibly useful in the current housing crisis.
Amendment to SB2860, sponsored by Dan Gelber and Tony Sasso: The amendment would require insurance companies to refund policyholders part of their premium if their policies get canceled without good cause. Again, this is basic common sense, but the Republicans rejected it so they could serve their masters in the insurance industry.
Amendment to SB2860, sponsored by Dan Gelber and Janet Long. This one was so simple and noncontroversial, it’s unbelievable that it didn’t pass. It would have required the state to conduct a market analysis of property insurance in the state and come up with recommendations on ways to achieve a minimum of 25% reduction in property insurance rates. It wasn’t even binding, but the Republicans killed it anyway. “Yes, master,” they say once again.
Automatic Compensation for the Wrongfully Incarcerated: Streamlining the process and making it automatic is a good idea. If the state takes away someone’s life wrongfully, they should quickly and without question compensate that person. I like Jeremy Ring’s no vote on this one, though, because of the “Clean Hands” provision. If someone is wrongfully convicted, they should be compensated, regardless of what else they may have done. I can understand excluding rapists, murderers, child molesters, etc., but just because someone has a felony doesn’t mean that it’s okay to screw them over. And Ellen Bogdanoff’s counter-argument is nonsensical: “When you’re going to just hand out a check, automatically, this is the best way to do it, in terms of somebody with an extensive rap sheet is not going to be compensated without further looking into their situation.” We aren’t “just handing out a check.” We’re compensating someone for stealing a portion of their life. And the way the Clean Hands provision works, someone doesn’t have to have an “extensive” rap sheet to be denied compensation, they just have to have one felony. Ever. For any reason.
HB669: This one would ban harassment and bullying in K-12 public schools. I like the idea and something needs to be done about this, but I’d have to learn more about some of the specifics, because this seems like a very difficult problem to deal with.
SB1718, sponsored by Don Gaetz: Would make some people ineligible for teacher certification based on various offenses. People who did engaged in certain negative behaviours wouldn’t be allowed to just move to another district and keep teaching and administrators that hide offenses could be punished. Sounds good, but I’d have to know more about the specific offenses to know how legitimate this is.
HB7135: The energy bill is a mixed bag and I wonder why it didn’t have more opposition (only one member of the legislature voted against it). I like the extension of the attempts to lower greenhouse gases. But I dislike the cap-and-trade program for polluters, the give-aways to utility companies, the ease of eminent domain use for those companies, the ease of regulatory oversight of power plant siting, the prevention of a ban on plastic bags and the requirement that the legislature sign off on DEP’s efforts to lower car emissions. Thinking about it, I’m trying to figure out the good part of this bill.
SB542: This one expands the Florida Forever land-buying program for conservation from 2010 to 2020. Although the budget for it is a little low, extending this is certainly the right thing to do.
Death by Pedicure bill: Seriously, we had a problem with “death by pedicure”? Huh.
Write-in Loophole: Dave Aronberg tried to stop partisan political manipulation and disenfranchisement of voters in the state by closing the loophole that allows write-in candidates to close primaries. Republicans shut it down again, showing that they don’t really care about the will of the people, only about winning at all costs.
